The latest news and information regarding St. Louis car accidents. Car accident attorney Christopher Hoffmann provides useful tips on what to do if you are involved a Missouri auto accident and how you can work to prevent such accidents from happening.

05/17/2013

Can Low Speed Car Accidents Cause Serious Injuries?

Vehicle damage does not directly correlate to bodily injuries.

When people think of serious injuries from a car accident, they think of people needing to be cut from the wreckage of a vehicle that is totaled. But even if a car accident does not cause major damage to your vehicle you can still sustain severe injuries that can impact your life and impede your normal activities. Injuries to your body can occur regardless of how damaged your vehicle is. Vehicle damage does not directly correlate to bodily injuries. Though insurance companies may try to tell you different information.

Cars are designed much better than they used to be. This means that looks can sometimes be deceiving. Vehicles can actually be involved in higher speed impact crashes without being totaled or destroyed. Bumpers are better at absorbing force nowadays, but this means that an accident that may have resulted in “minor” damage to your vehicle, may still result in major damage to your body.

Preexisting conditions or a prior neck injury can increase the potential for serious injury as well.

Finding an experienced auto accident attorney is important. Auto accident attorneys understand that your injuries can still be serious even in a low impact collision, and they know that experts can corroborate this. The at-fault driver and their insurance company will have their own experts, like biomechanical engineers and doctors, who will say that a low impact collision could not cause your significant injuries, but this is just a tactic meant to keep settlement costs down.

You should get checked out by a doctor even after a low impact collision. Even if your symptoms are not immediately present this does not mean you are uninjured. You may not notice symptoms until a day or even weeks later. If this occurs you should see a doctor right away. Even in a low impact collision you can sustain permanent neck injuries that can cause chronic pain and can be financially straining.

You deserve a fair injury settlement to compensate you for your injuries and cover your medical expenses. It is true that some people try to fraudulently claim that they were seriously injured in a low impact collision, and this does make some people suspicious. But just because some people are fakers does not mean that your injuries are not real or are invalid. There are plenty of doctors, chiropractors, and other experts who will attest to the fact that whiplash and other serious injuries can happen even when an accident is minor.

Contact a Car Accident Attorney

If you are in a car accident and become injured, you should contact an auto accident attorney who can help you recover damages related to your accident and injury. Having someone on your side to advocate on your behalf, who believes your injuries are real and will fight for you, will help to give you peace of mind. You may have to take your case to trial because fair settlements can be hard to achieve without taking the next step. As soon as you realize you are injured, contact an auto accident attorney who can get to work to recover compensation for your injuries.

Contact the Hoffmann Law Firm at (314) 361-4242 or toll free at (866) 763-6433 to schedule a free and private consultation.